Update!

On March 28th, we met with Supervisor Jeff Stone and his assistant Olivia Barnes.  While the meeting was overall positive, no absolute promises were made.  However, I did request the ordinance governing goat keeping be removed or altered to allow miniature goat keeping at the least.  I gave Supervisor Stone and lot of material on living green and the benefits of backyard dairies and chicken keeping.  I also gave him all the information from Seattle, including their new ordinance which allows goat keeping and all their health research.  Phyllis Schulman, Seattle’s city Councilman Conlin’s assistant, has offered to call Mr. Stone on our behalf and I will be asking her to go ahead and call him.

Yesterday we received a fax from Olivia that she sent to Code Enforcement:

Gentlemen,

Supervisor Stone met with Mr. and Mrs. Jakubac to discuss their lack of compliance with current ordinances.  The conclusion of the meeting is that the Third District Office will be researching ordinance language that addresses the keeping of miniature goats.  Our office may utilize various departments to research the matter and it may take some time to reach a decision on any ordinance amendment.  In the meantime, the Jakubac’s have agreed to minimize any impacts of the goats to the adjacent property owners.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Olivia Barnes

Legislative Team Member
Supervisor Jeff Stone
Third District
obbarnes@rcbos.org

Phone 951-955-1033
Fax 951-955-2194

So all of this means that Code Enforcement cannot give us any more citations while Supervisor Stone works this through.  Tomorrow we have our hearing about the last citation.  I doubt we will get our fine back, but at least they will know we are working with the county and are not blatant law breakers.

If you feel you want to support this cause, you can email, call or fax the Supervisor to show your support.  We have to show him that many people are in favor of this change, otherwise nothing will change.  I will me asking Phyllis Schulman, who is Seattle city Councilman Conlin’s assistant to call Mr. Stone.

We sincerely appreciate all the support we have received thus far.

An Enchanted Corner

Here is another project!  We had this one little skinny birch tree in the corner of the front yard.  It had been run over by the snow plow 2 winters ago and almost snapped in half.  We thought it was a gonner.  However, it has lived barely.  It hasn’t really grown, but it is alive so I have hope.  However, I love the look of storybook cottages that have the big, droopy birch trees around them..  It is a nice contrast to our 75 ft tall pines and softens the look of the garden.  So what the heck I thought.  Let’s get a couple more.  So I did!

These trees were so nice and full I just had to have them.  Someone really should keep me out of the nursery.  LOL!!!  Anyway, after I got them planted, the spot just seemed to be calling for a bench and a table for summer time reading and iced tea drinking. Once these 3 trees get big enough to make some shade, I have a feeling it will my favorite spot.  The only problem with gardening is waiting for things to grow.  But I do love seeing the progress from year to year.  It is exciting to see things get bigger over the years.  I try to remain patient and remember the old adage.  First they sleep, then they creep, then they leap!  Most  of the trees, lilac bushes and roses are around the creeping stage and I anxiously await their leaping!

Mulch, mulch and more mulch

Another thing that has been keeping me busy is mulching things.  I am very lucky because the water district I work for brings in cedar and pine mulch from the tree trimmers.  This mulch is free to anyone who lives in our water district.  So here is what I got for free a couple weeks ago.

Yep, that is a dump truck load of mulch.  Since we are in a drought, it is important to mulch your garden to save water.  It is something we all should be doing whether we are in a drought or not.  Conserving water is everyone’s responsibility.

Here is an area outside the goat pen that I redid with some ivy, lambs ear and lots and lots of mulch.  This is  a very shady area due to the two oak trees and veggies won’t grow here.  So I made a viewing area to look at the goats.  I also put one of my old claw foot tubs out there to grow more ivy and some flowers.

Here is a view from the side as you come up our little dirt lane towards our house.  We will eventually be moving the feeder and I thought this would be a nice little area to goat watch.  That is Jazz sticking her head up from eating!

I also moved several large bushes from the front of their pen to the side so I could plant raspberries and blackberries out there.  I then had to mulch the new plants and mulch the front bed as well.  I still have the front garden and the side to go, but they were mulched last year, so they will just need top dressed.  I am amazed at how much water we save by mulching.  Later this summer we hope to get our patio in and we will be mulching all around what isn’t patio as well.   It also helps to keep the dust down.

No comments?

I have been getting a lot of hits lately, which is great!  But no one is leaving any comments.  I would love to hear from others, so please feel free to post your thoughts!

Le Petite Potager

Well I have been working on the potager getting it ready for planting.  It doesn’t look so great now, but by the end of summer it will be fabulous.  We are still adding compost and trying to better the soil.  I know this will take several years, but if we keep working at it, it will be black gold before we know it.

In this picture, I have laid some stepping stones at both of the open ends and filled the path with mulch.  This will provide a nice walking space for getting to things in the garden.  I also took my arbor that someone ran into this winter and put it over the entrance to the potage.  I then moved my two New Dawn roses that survived being run over and put one on either side.  It doesn’t look like much now, but they have already started growing like crazy.  I am envisioning them covering the arbor and how lovely they will look in full bloom.

I also intend to make or have made a sign to hang on the top of the arbor that says, Le Petite Potager.  The left side of the garden is surrounded by cedar logs and the right side is made out of cinder blocks that we got for free.  I intend to fill each hole in the blocks with dirt and plant strawberries and lettuce and maybe a few flowers here and there.  Should look great once everything gets growing.  I am trying to waste no space.  Also at the back of the path you can see 3 pots.  These will be getting planted and moved and our compost bin will go there.  We are waiting to put that in because the neighbor behind us is putting in a new fence.  Once he is done with that, we can then put in the compost bin.

I will be putting in my bush beans tomorrow in the left garden.  I have already planted my french beans and peas in the garden by the chicken pen.  I am going to space out some of my planting so they don’t all come at once.  But I do want to get a lot of bush beans at once so I can can.  Hopefully it is going to be a busy summer!

What I’ve been up to

I must apologize for not writing much lately. Things have gotten a little out of control. I took on a second part time job as the secretary at my church. It is much harder than what was explained to me and I have had to put in more hours than expected. Hopefully things will settle down soon with that. Meanwhile at the water district, we are in the midsts of changing over our billing system. This means the regular secretary has to be holed up in the back room manually entering all of our customers into the new system. Then I get to learn to do the billing. So I have been going in 3 or 4 days a week to watch the front office and let her work in peace.

We are also getting ready for my daughter Emily’s 13th birthday party on Sunday. There is nothing like people coming to your house to get you up and doing some much needed projects. I re-grouted around the kitchen sink, the toilet and the bathtub. I put in a new rug and some new jars to hold Q-tips and cotton balls. It is finally starting to look half decent. I still need to finish painting the ceiling and hopefully before winter comes again, get a new heater in there.

My husband has been working on trim. I finally, after 3 years, have baseboards and trim all around the doors! I cannot tell you what a difference this makes in the house. It now has a finished look as opposed to a project half way done look. This meant I could finish putting up the wall paper border in my kitchen. It feels so great to have the kitchen almost done. I am hoping he will install my new faucet this weekend. He was working on the new tub fixtures we bought, but as per usual, ran into a snafoo. The hot and cold water faucets fit fine, but the one you turn to put the shower on is a completely different size from the new one. Go figure. In a normal house, all 3 would be the same size. Now, since we aren’t plumbers, we don’t know what to do. DH is going to talk to someone and see if we can just install the shower handle but get a new faucet with a diverter and use that instead. Honestly, it is always something.

I will try to catch up on our homestead happenings by making several different posts.

Where does the time go?

My apologies for not writing for so long.  I promise to catch up over the weekend.  Lots happening around here.  I took a second part time job at my church and it is taking me some time to get in the swing of having two jobs now.  Both are part time and flexible, so I hope it works out.

A dear friend of ours passed away on March 2oth and we attended his funeral on the 27th.  That evening, my best friend Debbi, was run over by a Ford F250 while riding her bike in Big Bear.  Luckily she is not seriously injured.

My daughter Emily had to get braces on again this week and is having some serious pain, so we are trying to help her with that.   I guess sometimes life gets in the way.

Meanwhile back in the garden, things are moving along.  The strawberries are coming up really nicely and I am thinking about ordering in another 25 to 50 plants.  Most of the raspberry and blackberry starts I put in the other week, seem to be taking hold as well.  That is really exciting.

My hubby put the compost from our goat pen into the potager and has the smaller bed all turned and ready to go.  I even saw some worms in there!  I have been going through my seeds and trying to plan what is going where.  My friend John has offered to start my seeds in his green house for me.  So I think next week will entail a lot of planting.

One of our problems is that our growing season is so short here in the mountains.  I definitely see a greenhouse in my future!

This weekend I will get some pictures posted of what’s going on in the garden.  Hopefully life will settle back into a comfortable routine now.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone.  It is a beautiful morning here in the mountains.  While still very cool outside, the sun is shining and the day promises to be glorious.  The Easter Vigil last night was very spiritual and moving and Mass this morning will be inspirational and very uplifting.  We are having some activities for the children afterward.  Then home to cook dinner.  My family is coming up so I get to see my two grandbabies.  One just got a cast off her leg after having broken it on a slide at the playground.  Poor little dear.

Yesterday provided us an opportunity to work in the yard.  I am happy to say all the boysenberries and raspberries are in the ground!  We had enough starts to finish filling in along the split rail fence that runs the length of the yard from front to back and we also planted them all along the front of the goat pen.  So with any luck, soon there will be berries for eating, freezing and jam making.

I will be purchasing about 25 more strawberry plants as well.  I have two strawberry beds, and one is very sparse.   My goal is to grow enough berries to make jam for a year and to have berries to freeze.  I have future plans to put up lots of hanging baskets with them as well, but it all takes time.  I do what I can each year and keep planning for the next year.

My next goal is to get the blueberry bed ready and get the bushes ordered.  We think we have the room for about 6 bushes.  Since they can reach about 6 ft tall, I am hoping that this will add some privacy to the front of our house.  Once we have a patio in, we will add some evergreens, but it is hard to plant around something that isn’t built yet!

The white birch trees are in and the bench is placed between them and I think that will make a nice little reading area.  I now want to get some hollyhocks, foxgloves and some other flowers to plant in behind the bench to really make it look full and overflowing.  There is a lilac bush next to one of the birch trees, so once that blooms, it will be heavenly to sit on the bench and read while the smell of lilacs engulfs you.  One thing I have learned about gardeners is that they are very optimistic and good and envisioning what could be instead of just seeing what is.  I guess that is why I love it so much.  The promise of something better is always just around the corner.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The past few days have been very full.  We are on Easter break from school, but still doing reading, McGuffy’s Eclectic Reader, and we are working on art.  Emily also started the process of getting her braces on, so that meant a trip off the hill yesterday.  We have been trying to limit our trips since the price of gas is so high.  Locally it is almost $4 a gallon.  Propane has quadrupled in price and even with my husband’s employee discount, our heating bill has more than doubled.  It is hard to keep up with all of this, so we are cutting back where we can.

On a bright note, the weather has warmed up and I am getting out in the garden.  Will have lots of pics to post once we are done with the Easter Tridium.  I am a lector at my church and so this is a very busy time for me.  Today I will be reading the Passion of the Lord at 3 pm.  Sooooo….. I am going to spend all morning in the garden.  I splurged yesterday and bought two European Birch trees for the garden.  I have two already, but wanted to make a trio of them in the one corner of the garden.  I think they add a storybook quality to the yard.

Plus my dear friend John, came to church last night bearing raspberry and boysenberry starts.  What a guy!!!  He is a gardening maniac and is down sizing his very large garden.  Luckily, I am usually the recipient of his off casts.  I am happy to have his hand me downs.

I spent some time working on the potager the other day as well and have now installed an arbor to enter the garden through, put down some stepping stones, filled the path with bark mulch, planted two New Dawn roses around the arbor and moved my rooster wind mill to the center of the smaller section of the potager.  I will grow something that climbs up that.  Perhaps morning glories.

Today’s plan is to plant the new trees, or at least get the area ready, put in the sitting bench,  redo the side garden by the goat pen, which will mean moving a lot of butterfly bushes and other large bushes from the front side of the pen and once that is all done I can then plant the berries which will go all along the front side of the goat pen, but behind the strawberry patch.  If time allows, I will move the small picket fence from the back of the goat pen to the front to keep dogs out of the strawberry patch.

I know this all sounds confusing, but I will post pics after it is all done.  Plus all the gardens are a mess from the winter and a general clean up is in order.  So I better get off the computer and get on the stick.  Will catch up soon!

Kitchen Again

While browsing the web this weekend, I came across some wonderful kitchens that people redid themselves. I found one kitchen that is actually smaller than mine and has been made over by the owner. He didn’t want to disturb the vintage porcelain sink that was there and in good shape, so he tiled the counter tops himself and instead of replacing them. And instead of of getting new cabinets, he re-did those as well. By adding some simple wood trim, paint, glaze and new knobs, this kitchen was transformed. I was so impressed and inspired.

I am planning how I want to do my cupboards, and feeling quite confused by all the choices. I have very plain, boring cabinets and while I don’t want anything fancy, I would like to jazz them up a bit. Seeing how this small kitchen was brought back to life by an owner with vision, has given me hope for my own kitchen.  Now I have a few decisions to make!